This week’s theme
Back-formations

This week’s words
alliterate
jell
fly-tip
pettifog


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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PET-ee-fog)

MEANING:

verb intr.:
1. To quibble over trivial matters.
2. To engage in petty, often legalistic, chicanery.

ETYMOLOGY:

Back-formation from pettifogger, from petty (small) + fogger, perhaps after Fuggers, a Bavarian family of merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries. Earliest documented use: 1611.

NOTES:

To pettifog is a fine word when arguments are so small they could be filed under ‘miscellaneous lint’. Not every dispute deserves a courtroom. Some merely deserve a deep breath.

USAGE:

“With term limits, argues Mr [George] Will, all would change. Without lifetime careers to preserve, congressmen would be free to debate and discuss rather than pettifog and pander.”
Right Idea, Wrong Approach; The Economist (London, UK); Oct 31, 1992.

See more usage examples of pettifog in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: